Hogs Back Brewery's chairman Rupert Thompson gives a final look over lunch for his hop pickers, the table set amid mature Farnham White Bine hops in the brewery's hopyard. This year's harvest was the first of that hop variety, in its native soil of Surrey, "since the last bines were grubbed up 85 years ago."

Sixty and more years ago the hops would have been picked by travellers and other itinerant workers: today it’s students, earning some late summer holiday money before returning to college. This can cause problems: the hops have to be picked when the workforce is available to pick them, and Rupert and his team say that one of the things they have discovered since planting their own hops is that the cones often have the best flavours and aromas later in the year than many hop farmers would be harvesting them.